Three wins. One loss.

Win #1: We got the toilet fixed! Yea for us!! In our vicious fight we finally beat the toilet! Yesterday I bought a new floaty thing, took out the new/broken one (not the old/broken one that we already took out - we replaced it with the new/broken one) and put in the new/working one. Of course, after hours and hours spent hovering behind the toilet, this one went in super easy, less then five minutes and all is great. That was how hard it was supposed to be the FIRST time! But at least we have super cool new flexi piping now instead of pain in the %^$!#$% regular metal piping - so that's a win in and of itself, right? So we got the toilet fixed - no leaks - no water running - all is good again - Win One.

Win #2: Furnace. As most of you know Cody is insane about the heating bill - so he keeps it insanely cold and I wear a hat and fluffy socks around the house from November until May. But lately it's been cold even for him. The other morning we woke up and it was 56 degrees downstairs and 62 degrees upstairs. No matter how cheap you are that is just too darn cold to get out of bed! So we started messing with the heater and paying attention and even when we would set it at 84 it would cut off at around 65. So we knew something was wrong. So we called the Furnace Man (Florida folks - we have gas heat here, not electric) and prayed very hard we wouldn't have to buy a new one or we would have to sell one of Mr. Pickles' kidneys. So Furnace Man came and sure enough he asked us if we kept it pretty cool in the house. Cody, of course, asks "what would you consider 'pretty cool'?" Sure enough the problem was that we had the house at 55-57 during the day (we have a programable thermostat) and then warmed it up at night, so condensation was building up making the furnace cut off before it should have. So he drained the condensation and told us to keep the heat above 62-65 at all times!!! YIPPEEEE FOR ME!!! I was thrilled to hear that! No more Cody turning the heat down really cold so when I get home I can see my breath!!! So thrilled! So now we have a working furnace again that heats our house and we didn't have to pay too terribly much!!

Win #3: We got our Christmas Tree up finally! Well, it was technically "up" on Sunday when we put it in the stand, we hadn't decorated it yet. So last night we moved one of the bookcases out of the way, moved the tree into place and put all the ornaments on! It was great! We went through all the ornaments, put them all on and had a great time going through memories. One of them says "Cody and Missy 1997" - that was our second Christmas together. 10 darn years ago!!! Wow! That's pretty crazy. So the tree is up, ornaments and lights are on and life is good. Now just to find presents (for someone that is not myself) to go under the tree. :)

Loss: Green Bay. They lost to Dallas tonight. Since we don't have cable (or the NFL network) we went out to watch the game with friends, but the bar didn't have it on either so we got to watch a rousing game of Rutgers v. Louisville and get Green Bay updates on the cell phone. Oh well. Farvre got hurt in the 2nd so as long as he's okay life is good. Speaking of hurt quarterbacks, did you hear Tebow/Superman broke his hand during the FSU game and still played? How tough/nut job of him!

Hope everyone has a lot of wins tomorrow! At least it will be Friday!

Back to Life. Back to Reality.

Sigh. Back to reality today. Alarm clock ringing. Leaving for work in the cold rain - at least over the weekend we got to pick and choose if and when we left the house - not so on work days. Sit at work. Blah. Come home - go "out to eat" (Subway) - spend literally an hour at Home Depot searching for a new flexi hose thing to replace the metal one we had, a washer for the cut off valve (which they didn't have so we had to buy a whole new cut off valve), teflon tape and teflon tube tape. Came home - fixed all the leaks - fixed the cut off valve so we can now stop water to the toilet without having to turn off water to the entire house - and then . . . . the new floaty thing wouldn't work!!! AGGG!!! So I messed with it enough and I think we have it working now. If our brand spanking new floaty thing doesn't work consistently we have to take it all apart again, return it for a new one and put the new one in again - after we just finally got all the leaks to stop!!! Oh well - if anyone ever needs any information on the guts of a toilet, the piping that goes into the toilet, the water supply or shut off mechanisms for the toilet - I'm your girl - I'm a pro by now!
Other then that Cody wasn't in the mood to decorate the Christmas tree which is, of course, insanely irritating to me since I LOVE the holidays and I love getting the tree, decorating the tree, putting up lights, mailing Christmas cards, singing carols (I was evening singing 'Frosty the Snowman' in Home Depot tonight - yup, I'm THAT annoying person that you hate at the store humming the obnoxious carols - sorry) and all that jazz. I can't see how anyone can ever NOT be in the mood to decorate a tree - but I guess we did just waste another evening in the bathroom messing with pipes and toilets and I guess that's not very holiday spirt-ish. Tomorrow he has school until 9:30 so it will be at least Wednesday before my lovely Christmas tree gets any adornments. :( Until then it is just sitting in the middle of my living room blocking all access from the living room to the dining room.
In other news, I'm hot on the trail of making a Christmas list of what we are going to get everyone this year. Every year we wait until the week before Christmas and we're running around like chickens with no heads trying to find gifts at the last minute all while getting ready go to Florida and finishing up our work work and house work - this year I am determined not to let that happen - however every time I bring it up to Cody to sit down and brainstorm I get "Can we do this tomorrow?" My response, of course, is "The 'we can do it tomorrow' is what gets us into the running around at the last minute every year!!! Can't you see this?" To which he responds, "Okay, tomorrow then." I'm not kidding. If anyone can find a magic pill to cure boy procrastination, please let me know. Beer doesn't work - I already tried that. :)
That's about all the news here. Oh yeah, I drafted my Illinois Bar Study Plan/Calendar today. It sucks big time. Basically for 2-3 hours every day from December 1 until the end of February I have to study for the bar exam. At least I have a plan as to what 2-3 hours of misery I study each night - torts, family law, criminal procedure, constitutional law, civil procedure, suretyship (I have NO clue what this even is - it wasn't on the Missouri or Florida bars), wills and estates, trusts, etc. Fun, huh? I'm actually looking forward to the refresher on a lot of the stuff I totally forgot - but not looking forward to the insane detail you have to memorize to pass the bar. And I REALLY want to pass!
That's it - hope everyone enjoyed back to reality today. Only four weeks and one day to Christmas.

The Four Days of Thanksgiving.

We never do get to celebrate a whole 12 days of Christmas, but at least we got 4 days of Thanksgiving - and man was it fabulous! This Thanksgiving things we did not do: Drive to Florida, arriving at 3am to wake up at 8am, go to three Thanksgivings, get hardly any sleep, hardly get to see anyone, arrive back home at 1am to go to work the next day at 8am - only to turn around in three weeks and do it again. So this year we decided to stay home, catch up on sleep, projects, housework, and just plain relaxing. Mission accomplished! So the four days of Thankgsgiving:

Day One-Half: Thanksgiving officially starts Wednesday night. We had a friend visiting from Boston so we all got a big group together at Blueberry Hill (big hang out in STL) to catch up with her and hang out. Fantastic time and we had a great time seeing everyone. We miss this gathering every year because we're always driving, so it was nice to participate for once.

Day One: THANKSGIVING! We had a very "non-traditional" Thanksgiving. We were going to go to friends but neither of us was feeling great - general malise/winter cold and didn't want to get anyone else sick. It was also insanely cold outside - it even snowed a bit (the first snow of the season), though not enough to stick on the ground - "flurries."So we stayed home and started our big project - going through our crap. We took everything off the shelves, out of drawers and off of counters in the Boy Room and went through it all -unless we had a regular use for it or we loved it, it was tossed, donated, or put in a pile to sell (Ebay, etc.). It might sound boring, stupid or a complete waste of Thanksgiving but it was great for both of us and we both felt "lighter" afterwards. We also got to watch the Green Bay game - another win (Cody's a big Green Bay fan, being born in Wisconsin and all).Then we baked ourselves a ham, heated up some canned green beans and corn and had ourselves a nice Thanksgiving dinner. :) I even brought out the good glasses and the tablecloth for the occassion.

Day Two: Friday. We actually had planned on possibly doing a bit of shopping for some very targeted items - mainly Cody a good winter coat - but then we didn't get up until noon and it was still insanely cold so we decided against that. We actually went to Target to get some regular shopping done and then went to Goodwill. Cody loves his Goodwill. Then we came home and - drum roll please - painted our bathroom. This project has been on my "to do" list for over two years now. It's a small bathroom so it didn't take too long and we used some left-over paint that I thought was going to be too dark, but I LOVE it. More then anything I love that it's done (mostly - I still have to paint the door and the trim). Then we went up to Lowe's, bought a new light and sat on the floor and smiled at our wonderful work. It was so great to get a major project done!

Day Three: Saturday. I wanted to get our Christmas tree but Cody said that we had to get the house cleaned before we brought that big project in. So he worked on his homework and I cleaned, cleaned, cleaned - again more wonderful. Then of course it was football, football, football. We went to Ozzie's as usual to watch the Gator game but because the Tennessee v. Kentucky game went into three overtimes, we missed most of the first half. Boo!! But the game was good - Tebow was a god as usual. He made his case quite clearly for the Heisman - if he doesn't get it the whole reason will be that he's a sophmore. I think everyone agrees he's the greatest player in college football right now. Then we watch the first half of the Missouri v. Kansas game before moving on to a friend's Christmas party to watch the second half. We honestly thought this was going to be a good game - it sucked. Kansas was supposed to be this great team - I think Notre Dame could have beat them. They have NO offense and even less defense. Their offence missed two relatively short field goals and then threw an interception in the endzone - they seriously suck. But it's good for this state because now Missouri is #1 - but they still have to get past Oklahoma who already beat them this year. If Missouri and West Virigina both lose it could be Ohio State v. Georiga in the Championship Game so we'd have a SEC team in the game that didn't even win the SEC - strange. Enough football babble.

Day Four: Today. Today started out great - slept until noon, worked around the house and then ran some errands and got our Christmas tree - yippee! What a fun day. And then all hell broke lose. Our toilet has been running lately and we couldn't get it to stop so we bought a new floaty thing to fix it. I've replaced floaty things a number of times so I thought "no problem!" Wrong - big problem. Getting the old one out was a beast - water everyone (in my newly painted bathroom). Then we got the new one in and it leaked - so we messed with it and finally stopped that leak - but now another nut/screw leaked. Seven hours later, the damn thing still won't leak. Oh yeah, and the cut off valve won't work so we have to cut the water to the entire house - all because we wanted to replace a very easy floaty thingy. So tomorrow we take it all apart, go to Home Depot get all new tubing and a new nut/screw thing (we think it's stripped) and go at it again. This should have seriously been a 10 minute project at most, now there is water everyone, we wasted seven hours (we breaked for dinner in there), the thing still doesn't work and we have no water to the entire house (we turned it on for showers and then off again). What a crummy ending to a fabulous weekend!

So now it's bed time and back to work tomorrow. I SO want to call in sick but you know that no one would believe you if you called in sick on the Monday after Thanksgiving - they would assume you're still on vacation. Plus I try really hard to not ever call in sick - except if I have an insane migrane and am throwing up like crazy - wonderful, huh? But since they're insane about missing more then 10 minutes from work, I go in even sick most of the time (which is the total wrong thing to do) - but that's a whole 'nother post. :)

Hope everyone had a fabulous Thanksgiving!

Boy Quote of the Day

While at the grocery store the other day Cody picked up a frozen pumpkin pie because he knows I love the stuff. I told him that we don't need to get a frozen one because the regular ones are really really easy to bake. His response: "Where are you going to get the pumpkin?" I had to explain that the pumpkin for pumpkin pie came out of a can. To which he replied, what was the difference if it was frozen or out of the can if you're not going to use a "real" pumpkin. Point taken.

Fall

Fall has officially arrived and is already on its way out the door here. Today was a fabulous fall day - too bad it only lasts 24 hours. Tonight we'll be getting in the storms, then the temperature drops and for our lovely Thanksgiving I think our high is something like 40 and our low is in the low 20s. There's even a chance of snow. Good-bye fall, hello winter. So before I get totally depressed about the impending doom (read: snow) and that winter is here I thought I'd get in a few fall photos.

This is our house - complete with fall colours. Note that most of those colours are on the ground because (1) the leaves all die and fall off the trees here and (2) we haven't raked in weeks. Some might wonder why we don't rake - for heaven's sake you can't even tell where the sidewalk is and you can't tell the walkway apart from the grass. Ahhh.. but let's pretend we did rake this evening and it looked all nice and dandy - for five minutes - because in five more minutes it would look like this again. So we don't rake until all the leaves are gone (or when it's going to rain/snow because then the leaves get mushy and icy and you slip and break body parts on them). Sort of the same logic explains why we never ever make our bed or barely put clothes up when they sit around in laundry baskets for weeks. :)
Anyway, not that you can tell it, but the porch and deck are newly painted. Cody and I literally had to climb a ridiculously large ladder to get to the top white part around the deck (not the siding on top - we don't touch that - except when Cody's dad is here and I'm at work and they talk each other into fixing the siding way up there and then I only here about it later, too late to yell that they could have killed themselves and should have hired someone to do that). The mailbox (the black thing to the right of our door) is also new, as are the house numbers (to the left of the door). Yeah for us for finally finishing a project. You can't really see all the plants I have hanging/sitting on the porch but today was the last day they'll be outside - inside they come lest they freeze and die.
Oh, and yes, I do know our house looks like a barn. It's part of its 108 year old charm. :)

Another vestige of fall - sunset - while I'm still at work. This is the view if you look out one of my windows at work. It would be a fabulous sunset, but for the civil courthouse (the dome top building) in the way. :) Anyway, every day I watch this incredible sunset from my desk - at about 4-4:30pm. Pretty, yet depressing. So today I thought I would bring a camera and capture it. Not the best of sunsets today but still not bad. I would enjoy them better - except they come at 4:30 and I'm still at work. Did I mention yet that I'm still at work when the sun sets? Because I am and it's not cool. Not cool at all. When will Daylight Savings Time return??? (rhetorical question - I know the exact date and minute we get it back). Hope everyone is enjoying their fall!!!

Two Years.

Two years ago our lives changed forever. Two years ago it was a cool, but not cold, Saturday and Cody and I decided to go paddle boating at a nearby lake in Forest Park. We rode our little bikes over there (Cody no longer has his because thug criminals stole it out of our garage a while ago) and had a grand time hanging out and paddling around. On the way back to the dock thing Cody pulls a ring out of his pocket, tried to say something but I don't know what because I was screaming so much. Then we were forever stuck to each other - but in a good way. Two years ago today we got engaged. Now, two years later, we made it through wedding planning (which I swear has to be harder then having kids) and are happily ever after married.

We figured it out!

One of the downfalls to living in a city without family is that when things go wrong you have to figure it out yourself. Like when my car broke - except for almost a year we didn't figure it out ourselves (not for lack of trying though) and it didn't get fixed until Cody's dad rescued us and fixed it. But other things we've managed to figure out - like when we lost power last year and when other random things break. Friday was one of those days.
When we got home, dead tired and exhausted, we turned the thermostat up to heat the house up (it goes down automatically during the day). Except there was no air coming out of the vents. We wandered to the basement and heard the big boxy thing making noise (which I am told is our furnace - for reference and those that live down south - we have gas furnaces here, not electric). "Oh freck" we thought - "please, oh please, God, PLEASE don't let our furnace be broken." So Cody takes off the cover thing and starts looking around for something to light thinking the pilot light went out. I, on the other hand, search Big Boxy Thing for some sort of instructions. Finally I find them and sure enough number 1 on the list is "Don't try to light this thing - it has an electric pilot light." Sure enough there were step by step instructions on what to do when the thing won't work correctly. Basically it's akin to turning your computer off and then on again hoping that this simple manueveur will fix the problem (which, strangely, it usually does). So I insist, since there is gas involved and I am insanely scared of gas, that we do every step exactly as it is listed in the exact order it is listed. So we turn down the thermostat, off the boxy thing, turn off the power to the house (well, we only had to turn it off to the boxy thing but since we weren't 100% positive which fuse was the furnace I insisted the entire house be turned off), wait five minutes, smell for smoke, then power back on and furnace back on and turn the thermostat back up - MAGIC - it worked. I cannot even tell you how happy I was that this stupid little procedure worked. Because it was COLD and it was Friday and I don't even know where to begin if something were to happen to our heating system.
So yes, score one more point for us in house lessons learned. Because I'm telling you, had we lived within 50 miles of family, I would have packed myself up, driven to their house, and waited for someone else to fix it. :)

NPR, cont.

Did I mention that NPR has Democracy Now? Because they do. The most fabulous news radio show ever. If you're into that sort of thing.

On Marriage - Part II.

Cody and I are not very religious people, for better or worse, so we didn't have any Bible passages read at the wedding. The one passage that I really felt strongly enough about to read at the wedding was actually the inspiration for the title of the last blog, so I thought I would post the passage here. Plus I was trying to remember it the other day and couldn't find it easily - now if I know it's here I can always find it. It's from Kahlil Gibran's "The Prophet." (If you're into this sort of thing and need a good read, this is one.)

Then Almitra spoke again and said, And
what of Marriage, master?
And he answered saying:
You were born together, and together you
shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white
wings of death scatter your days.
Ay, you shall be togheter even in the
silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance
between you.

Love one another, but make not a bond
of love;
Let it rather be a moving sea between
the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from
one cup.
Give on another of your bread but eat
not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous,
but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone
thought they quiver with the same music.

Give you hearts, but not into each
other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain
your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near
together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow
not in each other's shadow.

I love the passage because it's not insanely lovey-dovey and it's really how I feel about our lives and our marriage (disclaimer: obviously each marriage/relationship is different and one person's take on things might not be good/right/fit another). Maybe it's because we got married "later" (though I don't consider myself terribly old - yet) and we both had developed an adult life separate from each other before we got married. Who knows. All I know is that I'm not a "two become one" person - I'm more of a "two, separate, but together, are stronger." So, yeah, I like it so I thought I would post it - plus I've got a stack of paperwork that I was determined to go through before Cody gets home from school and I REALLY don't want to deal with paperwork right now so I'd do anything - including posting random book passages - to spend my time. :)

Married Life.

Two little notes on married life.
First, reason #764 I love Husband (way back in the dark ages when dinosaurs still wandered the earth and Cody and I first started dating, I was so tickled the first time he called me his girlfriend that I started calling him Boyfriend - like "Hi Boyfriend, how was your day?" - now that we're married I joke and just call him Husband, like a proper name - it's funnier in real life then when I write about it): When I took his car to get the oil changed yesterday (because I am THAT nice of a wife - he has been insanely busy with school yet insanely antsy about getting his darn oil changed so I traded cars with him yesterday while he went to a school group meeting so I could get the oil changed for him - major Bonus Wife Points!), I turned on the radio and it was on NPR! Yet another reason I married him! I think I used to like radio - back when they played good music - but I can't remember what that was really like so I listen to NPR. I LOVE NPR! So one day Cody and I were talking and I said something like "I heard XYZ on NPR" and he said "Yeah, I heard that one too - add interesting tid bit here." I was more then impressed but wasn't 100% convinced he was a convert - until I got in his car and it was on the radio. Now that's compatibility. :) So now we regularly talk about what's on the news and can talk intelligently rather then about some retarded morning radio moron story about that guy who married a pig or something (yes, I really really hate morning radio).

Second, not very interesting but still a "moment" moment. I went to pick up my dry cleaning today and didn't have my ticket (for those of you who use dry cleaners, you know this the mortal sin of dry cleaning - if you don't have your ticket they will take all other 20 people in line before you - good thing I was the only one in there - but they still huffed and puffed) so they asked for my name - I said "Flynn." So they looked and looked. "Are you sure you brought it in on Saturday?" they asked. I thought "Yup, I brought it in while my passed out husband slept because he played poker until 7:30 am the night/morning before." Finally it hit me - "Can you look under Raffensperger?" Sure enough it was right there. I'm slowly but surely changing things - credit cards, bank statements, Zoo memberships, magazine subscriptions, pharmacies, doctor's offices, the grocery store wine club, newsletters, etc. (never knew your name was on SO much stuff until you get married) - but I'm still getting used to it. I had just assumed I used the shorter one to turn in my dry cleaning, but I'm really making an effort to make the change - even if I have to spell it literally 30 times before they can get it right. Speaking of that - if you ever get your oil changed at Wal-Mart just tell them your last name is "M" - anything longer then that, especially 13 letters, and you'll likely be there for 20 minutes while they try to get your name in the computer - NOT KIDDING.

It's the fun little things that make marriage fun.

Sadness.

Some things are just sad sometimes. Either that or I'm just a sad packrat (but hey, if I'm a packrat then Cody is too so we're in it together). So I'm on a mission - I am seriously going through every bit of our house (doing a quickish first run now so that we can do a second cull when we have some good time - i.e. Thanksgiving break) and every bit of our life and routine to make it more efficient. As you can probably tell, I finished my book "Find More Time - How to get things done at home, organize your life and feel great about it." So yeah, it's lame, but it was a good book and it got me motivated so I guess it served its purpose. Anyway I'm trying to get our life into a well-oiled machine. I really feel like we're like that with our relationship - we've known each other so long and can read each other so well we really do exist very well and very peacefully - like a well-oiled machine. Our life, not so much. We're hectic, busy, can't ever find anything (we determined that I probably waste over 48 hours a year just looking for my keys) and generally feel behind and discombobulated. So I'm working to get us organized and pare down the extranious.
The first part of that is to get rid stuff we don't need and organize what we do need. The problem is Cody and I think we "need" everything we own. Seriously, we can find an excuse to save anything - anything.
Anyway, so tonight part of my mission was to go through linens that we've moved from one place to another. We had 9 comforters/bedspreads. That's a bit excessive. Granted, these date back to at least when I was in the 4th grade - I have probably never gotten rid of one bedspread I've ever owned - but that's still insane for a house with TWO people. So in that pile of comforters that we were forced to viciously and cold-heartedly go through was one I got when I first moved to Fort Walton Beach in the 4th grade - it was a beach/sea shell print and a really warm, though light blanket. Then there was the two-sided flower pattern bedspread my dad and stepmom got me when I was probably in the 5th grade (one side was white flowers and the other side blue). There was the comforter my grandma bought me at Target when I moved to Gainesville (the first time) to live in the dorms - I'd always had a double bed and the dorms had singles so she bought me a cute single comforter - I'd saved it because it reminds me of her even though the stitching was coming out of the sides. There was one I bought in Law School - the first complete bed set I ever bought myself - comforter, sheets, pillow cases, shams, etc. - but it too had seen better days in terms of stiching - obviously if I bought it in law school I was poor and bought a cheap set - but it was still one I bought all by myself - thanks to Feceral Student Loans, of course - that I'm still paying on - I'm still paying interest on a comforter that I threw away - that's sad - kids, think before you buy anything with loans or credit! Then there was Cody's bedspread - it didn't fit on any bed we currently used but I couldn't get rid of it because he had that when we first met.
Anyway, in the end we managed to get rid of a few of them, save one for the "Kitty Condo" that we will one day build (we have a grand "Kitty Condo" building plan that we will get to one day) and save one for a light summer blanket if our down comforter gets too hot. Yeah, when we got married I finally splurged and got a down comforter - I'd wanted one my whole life and never had one so that was my treat to myself for making it through wedding planning. :)
So, yeah, it was sad to go through that stuff and get rid of some but I guess saving a comforter that has stiching coming undone to remind me of my grandma isn't the best way to think of her anyway - a picture in a frame would be more efficient and take up less space. We'd also decided to get rid of anythign that doesn't make us happy to own it - anything that has any negative memories (like the fuzzy blanket Cody got me for Valentine's Day 1998 or 1999 after he went to Daytona Beach for Valentine's weekend without telling me - fine blanket, bad memories) or just plain doesn't enrich our lives to own it.

Well, enough babbling - back to purging of old stuff before I lose my nerve and decide to keep everything. :)

Pure Good Times.

I had a bunch of things to post about tonight - I even wrote them all down so I wouldn't forget - and then I realized that Cody took my laptop to his group meeting for school. So no luck tonight. Hopefully tomorrow - though I'm on a house cleaning, task finishing, project progress spree lately. :) Anyway, yesterday a bunch of us got together and went to some of the Missouri wineries (you may laugh, but Missouri actually has some really good - and fun- wineries). It was PERFECT! Everyone was happy and had a good time, the trees were all turning colors so it was gorgeous and the weather was more then one could ever hope for in Missouri - about as perfect a day you could have. I'd kind of been grumpy lately and this totally cured me of that! Here's a few quick photos.

Everyone hanging out, drinking wine at Montelle. Cody wouldn't fit in the picture so he had to lie down on the bench.

More Montelle pictures.

Fabulous scenery at Montelle. You can't even get the full bredth of the colours just from a picture.

Everyone at Mount Pleasant Winery.

The fantabulous sunset. Still can't capture it in photos.

Photo Update.

In reverse chronological order (because I still can't figure out how to move photos around once they are uploaded onto Blogger and I don't see why they show up in the order you upload them from the bottom up):
This is tonight's vegetable harvest. We're getting a "hard freeze" tonight (apparently unlike the other times we've already been getting down past 32 degrees at night) so we went ahead and picked all the decent sized veggies in our garden just in case the freeze kills them all. Looks like we'll be eating a lot of green peppers for a while - the tomatoes will turn red by leaving them on the counter.

Last weekend we rode the motorcycle up to Ozzie's to watch the Gator game - one so we could ride the bike and it was nice and two because it's a great deterrent to drinking too many beers while watching the game (because when we do we don't get anything done for the rest of the day).

Pretty self explanatory - I hope. This is us all dressed up in our Halloween costumes. Since we were only going to a friend's party I just put on jeans with my pumpkin suit - usually I have black pants with black boots - it looks more official. Cody is a crazy Leprachan. Don't ask.

This is Wiggles all dressed up for Halloween. I'm sure you can see the pleasure on her face. This is Cody's favorite cat - or at least Cody is Wiggles' favorite person - we call her "Codependent Kitty" because she has this unnatural attachment to him - seriously she is obsessed with him. He thought it was degrading and might ruin her self-esteem if I posted this photo. I guess Wiggles should watch what she wears with all these people around with cameras these days.

And this is one of Wiggles looking stupid rolling around in the "sunshine." They lay upstairs and wait for the sun to come through these windows and then they fight each other for the sunshine space. Go figure. Who needs kids when you have cats this entertaining? :)

Boo.

Boo for the end of Daylight Savings Time. I LOVE DST!!! I can't find one good, credible reason why we can't be on DST all year long. I hate being back to normal time!!! It's now going to start getting dark around 4:30 !!! That's insane. You sit there at work just watching the sun go down and you can't even leave yet! We're all going to be Vitamin D deficient and insanely depressed!

Front Porch. Check.

We finally got (most of) the front porch painted!!!! Our goal was to finish this in June, then August, then before Cody's parents came to visit, then Halloween, but today we put everything else aside and painted painted painted until we got at least all the parts that face the neighbors and the street painted! The rest I guess I can work on as the time comes but it makes the house not look so bad. :) We got a ton done and I really just have ot paint the door, around the window and a bit here and there (some spots on the ceiling, etc.) - I'm quite excited that we actually got a project almost done!!!

Motorcycle.

One more thing we can thank my Bonus Parents for - Cody's motorcycle is working again. While at first I sort of had mixed emotions about this - while I like that he likes the bike, it scares the daylights out of me - I'm loving it again. Last weekend we took the bike up to Ozzie's to watch the UF game with all our Gator friends (like we do every Saturday - if it's Saturday and you're looking for us -that's where we'll be). It was amazing. At first I was scared like normal but Cody's mom told me to just sit still during turns/corners and to just look over the shoulder that we're turning towards - so I did that and it really made things better -for me and for Cody. It's so nice to ride along and look at all the trees and the scenery - when you're in the car you tend to ignore all that stuff. I'm still not a huge fan of going 85 on the interstate with zillions of cars merging in and out everywhere but I guess I trust Cody to watch out for what's going on. So I'm actually enjoying the fall in that it's great motorcycle weather.

More on Football.

A bit of football commentary here. This season is just WEIRD!! Seriously the strangest season ever. All sorts of crazy games - and crazy rankings. You have what should be top 10 teams unranked and teams that are never ranked in the top 10 (Quack Attack, anyone???). LSU loses to Kentucky who is the quintessential whipping boy of the SEC. FSU who can't seem to beat anyone beats #2 Boston College. USF was at some point ranked #2 (what where they thinking!!!). Colorado beats Oklahoma but can't win another game. Notre Dame is now 1-7 and lost to NAVY - who would have ever seen that coming (yeah, I bet on Notre Dame this week - one of my 8 losses). And it goes on and on and on. Strange strange season. The way it looks right now for the Gators, if Georgia and Tennessee lose another game we'll have a three loss team in the SEC Championship Game - everyone keeps beating up everyone else. Strange strange football year.

The bets are in.

Cody's a gamling man. I am not. I think casinos and gambling in general is dumb. I don't want to put my money on anything that I don't know for a fact will get me something - and a slot machine doesn't fulfill that requirement. Not that they're not fun once in a while - blow $20 on the penny slots, get some cheap drinks, hang out with friends - but it's just not my scene normally. For the Florida folks - casinos are legal here as long as they're on a body of water - since we're sandwiched between the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers that means lots of casinos for our gambling enjoyment (with that comes all the annoying casino commercials and the "gamble smart" commercials - not sure which is worse). Anyway, Cody likes to play poker - but since we've been so busy he doesn't ever get to go out there. Such is life.
Then there's football. We watch A LOT of football - only college - we sort of gave up on NFL - not really our thing much anymore. Maybe that's where all our time goes - football. Anyway, so each week we always talk about the games and who thought who was going to win and all that. So three weeks ago we decided to combine the gambling and the football. Cody figured it out that if we won 53% of our bets we could quit our jobs and move to Vegas (yeah, right) - the 53% is because the house takes a rake from every bet. So each Tuesday we print out the lines on all the college football games and we each pick 10 to "bet" on (we don't put any money on these -only bragging rights).
Anyway, the first week I was 8-2 (pretty good for girl, huh?) and Cody was 5-5. The next week I was 7-3 and Cody went 5-4-1 (he "pushed" on one because he bet the line and the team won by the line exactly). So as of last Friday I was 15-5 and Cody was 10-9-1. We were doing pretty good. Until this week. This week I bombed - totally. I went 1-8-1 and Cody went 4-5-1. We would be eating Ramen Noodles in Vegas this week if we had money on these games. I won only ONE game (thanks U Conn for making the spread against Rutgers) and lost (or pushed) on the rest! What a rough week for our betting. Oh well. At least we don't have money on them. :)

Ketchup.

So, it's been a while since the last blog. It's one of those times when it seems there is so much going on - we're crazy busy and barely getting enough sleep. But then you go to write about what is going on and you're at a loss. What is it that we're doing to take up all of our time?

So this led me to check out a book from the library (I've started using the correct terminology with the library book process - "checking out: books instead of "renting" them) - it's "Find More Time - How to get things done at home, organize your life and feel great about it." Because I really feel like we have the time - if we could just find it and use it wisely. Not that we have a lot of time - we're not ozzing time here but we have a little and I think the little we have can be better managed to make us more productive and less harried. For instance, every morning I rush around for 30 minutes doing what I should be able to do in five minutes, but for my lack of planning and disorganization it takes me way too long - find the keys, make breakfast, find the shoes, find keys since I put them down after I found them the first time when I went to make breakfast, find socks, then find shoes again since I put them down while looking for socks, find my purse - opps, wrong purse, change purses, find cell phone - where is that darn cell phone - "Cody can you call my phone I can't find it? Never mind, I found it," put phone in purse, what did I do with those keys, make it to the car - opps forgot the breakfast in the microwave - you see where I'm coming from. That's every day. So I'm on a mission to get things more organized and RELAXED. Yeah, I'm always on some mission. At least I'm focused?!?
Anyway, that's really the big update - but I've got some other random thoughts that I've been throwing around so I'll see how many of them I get through.